


John Almost Dies This Time

by JohnCheese



Category: John Dies at the End - David Wong
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Multi, WIP, more tags to be added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-04 22:57:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15157406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnCheese/pseuds/JohnCheese
Summary: The one where John really, truly, almost dies.





	1. Chapter 1

**AN INTRODUCTION**

If you've decided to pick up this work, if you're wondering what's going to go down in the next installment of CW TV show that is my life, then you definitely already know who I am. David Wong. That's me. Again, not my real name, but at this point it might as well be. Back to what I was saying - this is one of our less exciting adventures, so I'm publishing it online, and that's why I really only think that someone who has read my previous works would decide to read this.

Anyway.

Our last near apocalyptic event involved, once again, monsters. Monsters pretending to be kids so they could hatch. Usual stuff. Our town also had massive flooding, which is more pertinent to this story than the whole child-monster thing. You see, with the sex shop below our apartment mostly destroyed, the building began to mold. And mold. And mold some more. Eventually, the city inspectors declared our building dangerous, and told Amy and I to get the heck out of Dodge as soon as possible. There was just one problem - there was nowhere to go. Most of the town was in a similar situation as us, people rotted out of their homes from the damp and trying to find somewhere to live. It was a double whammy, too, nowhere to go but now rent had spiked because they knew people were getting desperate. As you know, Amy and I moved into Chastity's sandbagged trailer for a while, but eventually Chastity just wanted her shit and her trailer back, so we were out of luck again.

So Amy and I made the short term decision to move in with John.

I know, I know, living with him would cause more problems than necessary. On the other hand, John's monolith of a house was largely undamaged except for the carpeting. There was plenty of space for the three of us to be comfortable, and after the whowhatwhenwherewhy of it all, we got ourselves settled. John got a decent-paying job as part of the clean up and repair crew after the flooding. Amy's job had been suspended for the time being, and I still didn't have a job, but working on my mental health was a job in and of itself.

Moving in with John took some rearranging. First off, was John's stuff - the other two bedrooms were set up for other uses. One was what John called his office. It did, in fact, contain a desk and John's pawn-shop laptop, but it also contained a futon, and the boxes and boxes of merch that John made and sold for us. I ignored those boxes as best I could. The other other bedroom served a similar purpose as my shed/extra bedroom had served, except John mainly used it to house weapons. The boxes in the office were moved to John's warehouse, as he called the weapon room, and me and Amy took the office and the futon. Amy made short work of the kitchen, making sure we had more than just alcohol and Hostess cupcakes.

So that's how that came about. It was only supposed to be short term, but our role as tenants at John's place was shorter than any of us had optimistically anticipated.

It was awful. Don't get me wrong - John had been my best friend for the past 15 years or so, but I could not stand living with the guy. I wanted to rip his head off by the end of day two. By the end of the first week, even John had started to look for open apartments for me and Amy. Again, don't get me wrong, I loved John and I loved his house, but it just was not going to work out. Eventually he found another small, cheap place, this one actually in an apartment complex, instead of above a dildo store, and Amy had her night shift job reinstated.

Are you sufficiently caught up now? Good. If you aren't, I couldn't give less of a shit. Why are you reading this then?


	2. How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Myself

(Me)

 

It was July, and I don't really want to get into it fully, but I was doing okay in therapy, and even started medications. Mostly, they seemed to be working. I still had some bad days, and I knew I would continue to have days like that, but if Amy's reaction was anything to go by, something was improving. That's all it took to keep me going. My therapist was a woman named Jenni Franklin, who I definitely liked better than my last therapist. My last therapist had been involved in trying to destroy our town, as you probably read a couple books ago.

 

I stepped out of the nice, cool therapist's office and into the disgusting heat. After Mother Nature pissed on us for the duration of our last escapade, She decided that simply no more rain was needed. Heading into July was already always blisteringly hot, but we had been hitting record temperatures all throughout June, and word was that a drought might be declared soon. John had done his fair share of physical labor jobs, but I was definitely getting worried for him at his repair/construction gig. John had told me that the management was assholes, and that someone had already passed out from heatstroke. Amy insisted that John bring at least one bottle of Pedialyte to work every day, to which he surprisingly complied.

 

Today I was driving back home to grab Amy (she had tonight off) and head to John's place. Tonight was Least Favorite Movie Night, where we watched movies we hated and got angry at them. The handle of my car was almost untouchable, the interior even worse. I had to juggle the burning plastic of the buckle of my seat belt for a moment before I got it in. By the time I reached our apartment, the climate inside the car was only marginally better, even with the AC on at full blast. When I parked in our assigned spot, I paused before turning the car off. I was debating whether or not I should actually turn it off to get hot again, and go wake Amy up, or if I should just call her and have her come down to the slightly cooler car. Apparently, I had been sitting there for too long, because my phone started screaming at me. It announced that Amy was calling. I picked up.

 

"David! Where are you? I'm assuming you finished your therapy session, are you gonna pick me up so we can go to John's for Least Favorite Movie Night?"

 

"Yeah, I'm actually downstairs right now, just keepin' the car cool for you."

 

Amy was down in less than two minutes. She also struggled briefly with how hot the handle of the car was, but seemed relieved by the relative coolness inside. As soon as I threw the car into reverse, she turned to me.

 

"So, how was your session today?"

 

She asked me this, every single time, without fail.

 

"It was fine." I said.

 

" _Just_ fine?"

 

I shrugged, looking out the window to check for cars. "I mean, it's therapy, so... yeah, it was just fine."

 

"And you still like her? Dr. Franklin?"

 

"Amy..." I paused, thinking for a moment. I disliked her on principle: they had forced me into this, but it was either therapy or losing both halves of my universe. With John's, uh, speech, it had been a no-brainer. I continued: "Look. I'm not doing this because I enjoy it, so of course she isn't my favorite person in the world. But, we get along enough to get the job done, and that's what we wanted, right?"

 

Amy studied me for a few moments, then looked out the window at the passing buildings. It wasn't the exact answer she wanted, but it was good enough for now. I clicked on the radio. It was worse than before, even more fucked up rants about 'them blacks' and how they were taking over America and how immigrants were poisoning the water supply. The two music stations were evangelical country or gangster rap. I settled on the gangster rap station. After a few minutes of this, Amy remembered the name of the D&D module she wanted to try with us, and the radio was shut off completely. We talked about Dungeons and Dragons all the way to John's house.

 

John's Ezekiel Jeep was in the driveway when we pulled up, leaving just enough room for us to park. It had taken me a while to realize that he parked that way on purpose; there was no reason for him to leave much space in the driveway, but he did in case we came over with the car. Just one of those little things, I guess.

 

When we walked up, there was a note stuck to the door, in John's neat, tiny handwriting:

 

"I'M BUSY... COME RIGHT IN ;) - J"

 

Okay, I'm actually going to pause just a bit here, to explain to you my confusion over this note he left. For one, it just seemed weird that John had signed it with his initial - we would have already known that it was him who left the note. Secondly, and I knew Amy had this thought too, what exactly was John busy with at this moment that he couldn't come to the door and greet us. He had answered the door in the middle of a screaming match with Joy, for Christ's sake. (We'll get to the matter of Joy later.) Finally, why the note was even necessary. We had pretty much free range in and out of John's house. Unless he happened to be getting laid, but he hadn't had a girlfriend in a while, as far as I knew.

 

So, Amy and I let ourselves in, and we were not incinerated.

 

John's leather and decor hadn't changed much, except for the carpeting and the coffee table. The carpeting, as you know, was ruined from flooding. The old coffee table was broken during an overzealous session of Dungeons and Dragons. Don't ask. The house was quiet, and Amy handed me the movies from her purse to set on the TV stand.

 

I heard footsteps from behind me, and then Amy exclaiming, "Oh! Hi, John!"

 

I turned, and it was indeed John, coming down the stairs and looking like he had stepped fresh out of the shower. He had a towel around his hips, a hairbrush in one hand and his phone in the other.

 

John said, "I take it that you saw my note?"

 

"Yep. What exactly were you so busy doing?" Amy asked, holding it up.

 

John looked down at himself. "Showering." he said. Ah. So the note had simply been John being John.

 

At this point, he had stopped at the bottom of the stairs, pausing mid-stroke with the hairbrush. He was frowning and doing something on his phone, and I was starting to worry that the towel might fall off with the way it was tucked.

 

I spoke up this time. "What's on your phone that's so important that you couldn't brush your hair and put some damn pants on beforehand?"

 

"I just - I was brushing my hair and then wanted to order the pizza," John said, by way of explanation.

 

"So you decided you could do both things at once? Go put some pants on."

 

Amy added: "And leave your phone here so you don't get distracted with it again." At this, John sighed, haphazardly flung his phone onto the couch, and stomped back upstairs. The towel miraculously stayed on his hips.

 

You're probably wondering why I hadn't mentioned Joy when we arrived. It was because Joy Park, or the collection of fuckroaches that called itself Joy Park, no longer lived here. Even though they were mainly sent to trick us, they also served to make us face our fears and help us along the way. Amy and I understood what ours had done for us, but John didn't really want to accept why Joy had shown up - to get rid of his addictions. I also thought it was significant that the form John's mind had picked was the Korean porn star, but wasn't sure how to analyze that part of it. After Joy had flushed John's entire drug stash - meth, weed, Adderall and all - she also somehow managed to make sure he didn't get his hands on any more. Joy then proceeded to be John's main caretaker through the arduous process of withdrawal. It wasn't that I didn't try to help - it was that Joy physically removed us from his house any time we attempted. I just think that John didn't want us to see him go through that.

 

John scuttled back down shortly after, hair in a ponytail, but looking like he hadn't actually continued to brush it. Amy had already put in the first movie. It was my movie - the 2007 Transformers. I hated it with a passion. I just didn't understand why, of all things, alien life forms would pick the form of trucks and shit. It just made me mad. Of course, John loved it because it was a Big Robot Fight. Amy, for her part, was mostly neutral on that movie.

 

The pizza we ordered was shitty as usual, and we ate most of it by the time Transformers was over. Next up was Amy's movie, the second Pacific Rim. I actually liked this one but understood why she had problems with it, while John merely thought of it as Big Robot Fight Part Two. I understood that too -- giant robots were cool (except for Transformers, those were awful), and John very much enjoyed things for the aesthetic and not for function. Taking a look at his decor told you everything about how John lived his life. Or, how John wanted you to think he lived his life.

 

We opened Oreos as the movie began. John loved the things, and went out of his way to purchase any and every new flavor that manifested itself. I didn't read the package when I grabbed one for myself, and was immediately shocked, and, quite honestly, disgusted to find that it had Pop Rocks in it.

 

"John, what the fuck? Why do these have Pop Rocks in them?" I demanded.

 

"What do you mean, 'what the frick'?" Amy asked in an accusatory tone, "They're amazing -- John, _where did you get these Oreos_?"

 

"Fuckin- the grocery store? Mmf, hold on..." just then, John's phone rang, and he snatched it up from where it buzzed angrily against the glass table. Seeming to recognize the caller, he decided to answer. "Hey dude," he said, "What's goin' on?" A pause. John glanced over to look at Amy and I. "I mean, I can't hang tonight, I'm kinda hangin' out with my friends.... Okay. Okay, yeah, that works. See you tomorrow then. CIAO!"

 

That was John's new thing. CIAO!

 

"What was that all about?" Amy asked around a mouthful of popping Oreo.

 

John shrugged, settling back on the couch again. "Ah, just a friend who wanted to hang out. I don't think you've met him- you neither Dave. But I said no 'cause, you know, Least Favorite Movie night."

 

The rest of Pacific Rim went smoothly, and then it was time for John's movie -- Free Willy. We all knew why John picked this movie. For his part, he tried to be tough and save the day and all that jazz, but John was a crier. Specifically, he was a crier when he watched movies such as Free Willy. Amy tended to cry during this movie too, but John didn't even want to show it. He kept getting up during the emotional parts, claiming he needed to get some more water in the kitchen, but he was really just going in there so we wouldn't see him cry. When he came back, his glass would be full, but then he'd sit with his hair covering his face, presumably so that we also couldn't see the evidence. By the time the movie was over, there were three or four glasses of water on the table, all from John's crying trips to the kitchen.

 

When we left, Amy was allowed to take home the Pop Rock Oreos, and John sniffled as he waved us goodbye from his doorway. That night, as I tried to fall asleep beside Amy, I thought that maybe things were starting to settle down for us.

 

Oh boy was I wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> This introduction is super short, but I am working on the first chapter and hope to have it up soon. I'm really bad at updating fics so I'll do my best with this one. if there are any continuity issues let me know


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